What a difference a financial meltdown makes.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 45% of voters nationwide fear the government will do too much in response to the economic crisis while 44% are concerned that the government won’t do enough.

While voters are now evenly divided on the question, as recently as September they were far more concerned that the government would do too much. At that time, 63% of voters worried that the federal government would do too much and just 25% held the opposite concern.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of Republicans still worry the government will do too much, but 67% of Democrats have the opposite concern. A plurality of unaffiliated voters fear too much government action.

The overall change in attitudes didn’t happen all at once. Voters have been warming to the idea of more government action as the economic news worsened.

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The number who feared government would do too much fell from 63% in September to 55% in mid-October, 46% in November, 48% in December.

The number fearing the government would do too little increased from 25% in September to 41% by December and 44% today.

It’s interesting to note that just before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers became front-page news, 51% of voters said the government already had too much control of the economy.
Now, 54% believe a major government economic recovery plan is necessary to restore the U.S. economy to good health.

Last fall, only 32% of voters thought another economic stimulus plan being discussed in Congress was a good idea.

The one constant throughout, however, is belief in the power of tax cuts to help the economy. In every survey conducted over the past few months, a majority of voters have favored tax cuts and tax cuts have consistently been more popular than stimulus plans involving new government spending. The latest findings show that 55% of voters believe any economic recovery plan approved by Congress should include tax cuts.

While voters are warming to the idea of government action, specific projects have raised objections. The initial bailout for the financial industry was approved despite voter opposition. Soon after, Americans learned that General Motors, the biggest of the Big Three automakers, faced bankruptcy by early 2009. The auto industry asked for taxpayer help and found a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill. But a sizable plurality of Americans opposed taxpayer-backed bailouts of the Big Three automakers, and 73% even worried the U.S. government would run out of money with all the demands being made on the federal treasury in the current economic crisis.

Congress tried to hammer out a bailout package for the Big Three which included unprecedented government involvement in the private sector, even though by then 55% of Americans were opposed.

That opposition remained fairly steady, leading to the defeat of the congressional measure and forcing President Bush to make loans available to the automakers from the October bailout plan.

Meanwhile, high-level government planned to get directly involved in the beleaguered home mortgage market, but a plurality of homeowners (45%) didn’t like that idea either.
All of this has taken place as consumer and investor confidence in the economy continue to hover just above record lows. Consumer confidence fell 50% over the past two years, including a 24% decline in the past three months.

Not only that, the Rasmussen Employment Index signals continued weakness in the labor market. For every worker whose firm is hiring new workers, there are two whose firms are laying people off.

Despite the troubled economy, most Americans believe that just about anybody who is willing to work can find a job. Most also believe it’s possible for just about anyone to work their way out of poverty. However, most say it’s not possible for anyone willing to work hard to get rich in America.

Still, 47% say that today’s generation of children will not be better off than their parents and Americans are narrowly divided over whether the United States will still be the world’s most powerful nation at the end of the current century.

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